Fugitive killed himself Monday in Howard Co., according to state police

September 01, 2005|By Sheridan Lyons | Sheridan Lyons,SUN STAFF

A Baltimore County man has been charged with helping a longtime friend elude a 3 1/2 -day police manhunt before it ended Monday when the fugitive killed himself in a state park in Howard County, according to state police and court records.

Everette Ray Taylor, 65, of the 2700 block Hernwood Road in Woodstock was charged with two misdemeanor counts of harboring a fugitive and of hindering a police investigation.

Taylor is said to have picked up Michael Kenneth Voland Sr. of Hanover, Pa., on Friday night at Route 97 and Buckhorn Road, near Berrett in Carroll County, while police in Maryland and Pennsylvania were searching for Voland. A skilled hunter, Voland, 45, was armed and considered extremely dangerous. Taylor provided the fugitive with a change of clothes and food, police said.

A Carroll County District Court commissioner released Taylor without bail Tuesday night. Voland was described in charging documents as "a lifelong friend" of Taylor.

The manhunt for Voland began at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, after Pennsylvania state police went to his home in Pennsylvania to confiscate his guns in connection with a protective order obtained by his wife, a Pennsylvania resident, from whom he was separated, according to prosecutors and police.

She had called Carroll authorities Aug. 23 to report that Voland was threatening her, according to Maria L. Oesterreicher, a senior assistant state's attorney in Carroll. As a result, Oesterreicher was preparing to reopen a February assault case against Voland that had been placed on the inactive docket after his wife refused to testify against him.

When the Pennsylvania police arrived, Voland fled into Maryland in his 1987 Chevrolet truck, until it broke down in South Carroll, police said. The manhunt, led by state police at Westminster, soon centered on the Woodstock-Granite area in Baltimore County, near the Patapsco Valley State Park.

Police said charges of assault and reckless endangerment were filed against Voland in Maryland, after he nearly struck a trooper with his vehicle and fired several shots, apparently into the air, Thursday night.

Police learned that Voland had contacted a man named Ray, who picked Voland up in the area sometime after 11 p.m. Friday, according to charging documents. Investigators found Taylor, who admitted helping Voland despite knowing that his friend was on the run from police, according to the charging documents.

A search of the area around Hernwood Road found a makeshift camp about a half-mile from Taylor's home with a campfire still smoldering, a blanket, pillow and food, according to charging documents. Two men driving along Daniels Road found Voland's body about 6:30 a.m. Monday in a small parking area of Patapsco Valley State Park in Howard County with his .44-caliber Ruger carbine rifle nearby.

Voland had previously lived in the Granite-Woodstock area near the park and knew the surrounding area well, said Trooper John H. Linton II of the Westminster barracks.

Voland was convicted of a misdemeanor charge of jacklighting deer in March 2003 and ordered not to hunt for three years, according to prosecutors. In March 1979, he received probation before judgment in a Baltimore County assault and battery case.

He was charged with assault again in March 2001 after he barricaded himself in his house in Union Bridge with his then-4-year-old son. This case also was placed on the inactive docket when his wife refused to cooperate, Oesterreicher said.

In the February assault case, he was ordered not to have any contact with his wife, other than visiting his son, she said. Oesterreicher said court records listed Voland at a Westminster address while his wife was at an undisclosed location in Pennsylvania.